This was discussed a while ago too - the notion of downvoting rewards. It was suggested that would incentivize revenge flagging and other downvote abuse.
Ultimately this is an epidemic that is simply not policeable through downvotes. Already there are cases of rampant self-upvotes being reported, but few seem to bother downvoting. With VP being such a luxury item, those who do only do so with 1% strength or so.
I see the benefit in rationing your votes to give out a strong vote to others, but let's face it, most people are rationing that for themselves.
Since the stated purpose for downvotes in the white paper is to deal with self votes in particular, and financial manipulation generally, and it has not worked, I'm all for killing it off - unless VP is based on reputation, rather than SP.
Reputation is community vetting, in a way, and thus high rep votes carry a sort of endorsement from the community, which I think would also create an additional note of censure that would attach to a rep weighted downvote.
It is clear however, that downvoting as conceived by the developers requires people to be far too coordinated and like minded for it to work even a little bit as conceived. In it's present form, is has unforeseen drawbacks in it's employment to censor, and instigate flagwars, while only once have I seen it used by a coordinated group in the way envisioned in the white paper.
In that case the leader of the flag assault made a remorseful post the following day, deeply regretting their actions.
As to people rationing vote for self votes, I only see any justification for that if your vote is worth a significant sum, multiple $, at least. Anything less than that is far more usefully employed engaging in curation, and developing a network. I guess people just haven't figgered that out yet.
For those whose SP holdings are substantial enough to make their vote a reasonable income, it is financially irresponsible to NOT self vote. Curation amounts to giving away their pay, as it takes 100 minnow votes to get $2.00, and most posts don't get that many votes. Many still do curate, of course, including those whose votes are worth $100's.
This shows the altruism Steemit brings out in users, because those votes are all in lieue of generating significant income.
After a certain point, weighting VP by SP strongly motivates against curation, and for self votes.
I have repeatedly argued that weighting votes equally, regardless of SP holdings, would allow whales to curate without neglecting their fiduciary responsibility to manage their wealth, encourage minnows to spread that VP, and grow their networks along with their holdings as others reciprocally voted their posts in return.
All of Steemit, however, depends on curation, and the current VP decay debacle kills the Steemit.
I have argued for eliminating VP decay altogether, but have neglected how that would impact bots. IMHO, your proposal for handling VP decay is the best I've seen, and I endorse it unreservedly.
Thanks very much for making the requisite effort to devise a novel and well considered plan to fix what ails Steemit far more than self votes. VP decay is a swollen, foetid underbelly that is rotting Steemit from within. Your proposal is like a probiotic after a course of Cephalexin - exactly what is needed in the innards where it matters.
Edit: I don't even want a slider atm. I wanna be able to just vote on stuff I like at least 100 times a day, which I did before I read the white paper, and understood that doing so kept my VP from recharging at all.